Who Dwells with the Contrite and Lowly - 11 September 2022

 

Mighty God, who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, who says “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15). O dwell with us and revive us!

O Lord, our Lord, we pray for Heritage Presbyterian Church, for these churches around Oklahoma City, Robinson St. Baptist Church, Victory Baptist, Calvary Missionary Baptist, and Christ MBC, and for your church in all places and your people being hammered and hounded and hunted down world over. We all profess our love and adoration for you, and we all confess that we are saved by your invasive and merciful love. Now, Lord, cause us to become what you have made us: Children of the Living, Holy God, who are no longer wooed by the father of lies, who are no longer caught in the snares of our own lusts and pride, but those who are thoroughly loyal to you. Give us aid and strength to be intentionally healing, caring for and defending the fatherless, widow, abused, beat-down and messed up.

For these, Lord, who are in need of your sustaining, healing, supporting help, we pray (…).

For the nations of the world, and the USA we pray. There are social and moral storms raging and ravaging cities, homes, campuses, and lives. Whether it’s LGBTQ+, Gender Dysphoria, historical revisionism, Critical Theories, Racist agitations, or whatever, cities, homes, campuses, and lives are being damaged. O Lord, we need you to come and grant us repentance, expose our liberal and conservative self-righteousness to our eyes, to turn us away from our socially damaging and self-destructive ways, and turn us to seek your face, to call on the name of the Lord, to seek to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly before you (Micah 6:8). And invigorate the leaders of the world that they would work for righteous peace; that they would make honorable the power and position entrusted to them; that they would uphold equity, morality, compassion, charitableness, and decency; and that they would defend and support activities, agencies and alliances that are genuinely good and upright. We ask all of this so that health, life and joy might prevail in all lands, and the Call of Christ might move unhindered through every region and be heard.

On this 21st anniversary of that fateful day when planes and people were used as weapons, lives were lost, and our nation was assaulted by revolutionary fanatics, we pause a moment to remember – especially those who died, to mourn, and to cry out silently to you on behalf of our land (…). Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.

Lord, we have prayed for friends and family which we know, that they might be restored to the Faith of Christ or come to faith in Christ; and still, we pray for them (…). But also, Lord, we beg you to look upon us: give us a heart to reach out and become like our great shepherd who seeks out the straying sheep. Make us more vocal and active in proclaiming your praises and announcing the way of Life in Jesus Christ. 

Finally, gracious Father, look upon us in this new season of Care Groups and Sunday evening worship. May this season be the beginning of new things for us individually, for our families, and for our church. In the words of Ezra, may God brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving (Ezra 9:8-9). And now we join our hearts and voices to pray as we have been taught, Our Father…

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